Snake plague strikes Brisbane backyards

While avoiding the bushfires that have threatened other parts of Australia, the recent heatwave has brought Queensland a different threat as large numbers of snakes get out and about in the warmth.

Transcript

BEN KNIGHT, PRESENTER: It's clearly been a terrible season for bushfire but it's also been the worst year in ages for snakes.

In Queensland, good rains and warm conditions have brought them out in force and you might have seen the story about the python which attached itself to a plane which was flying out of Cairns.

Well, further south in Brisbane, snakes are everywhere, not just the suburbs but in the CBD as well and the snake catchers are being run off their feet.

Our reporter Peter McCutcheon and cameraman Erik Havnen joined them on patrol.

PETER MCCUTCHEON, REPORTER: Midsummer in Brisbane. This city has largely been spared the scourge of bushfires but with the heat comes another menace. It's play time for snakes.

(to snake-catcher) So how's business?

GEOFF JACOBS, QLD WILDLIFE SOLUTIONS: Booming. It always is this time of year.

PETER MCCUTCHEON: We are on the road with veteran snake catcher Geoff Jacobs, who seems to know the entire snake history of Brisbane's south.

GEOFF JACOBS: Over there is red bellies. This one over this side, we are coming into Tarragindi, you get more eastern browns.

(on the job) Oh, are they around the back is she?

PETER MCCUTCHEON: Geoff Jacobs is joined by his son Darren and fiancÚ Shelle to deal with snake up a tree.

PAM: See where the top of the palms here, see where the seeds are?

GEOFF JACOBS: Oh yeah.

PAM: In between, he's hanging in between there.

PETER MCCUTCHEON: Who found the snake?

SUE MUNRO: I saw the snake first. I'm visiting here in Pam's yard and I just looked up through the branches and saw an odd flash of colour. Didn't really under what it was, looked back and was surprised to see a snake there.

GEOFF JACOBS: He's going to be hard to get now.

PETER MCCUTCHEON: Darren wrestles with a non-venomous carpet python with a belly full of possum.

GEOFF JACOBS: Pass him to me. He's had a ring tailed possum. Yeah.

SUE MUNRO: Oh poor possum.

GEOFF JACOBS: Well they've all got to eat, so it's not that bad. Go on, you pee on me. You want to grab the bag for us.

GEOFF JACOBS: Yeah, you get to wear snake piss for body cologne quite often in this job.

PETER MCCUTCHEON: The next job is more serious. A close encounter with a deadly species.

RHIANNA MIKKELSEN: This morning my partner came to go to work and I went out the front door, went to put his shoe on and realised that his foot wouldn't go in the shoe. Thought he had some gravel in his sock or something, pulled his foot out, went to put it back in and then picked the shoe up and realised that there was a snake it in it.

GEOFF JACOBS: Yeah, he's in the top 10 of venomous snakes in the world.

PETER MCCUTCHEON: How often do you find them in shoes like that?

GEOFF JACOBS: Under door mats, shoes, lounge rooms, kitchens, wherever. I've pulled these out of people's beds. So they are pretty mellow sort of a snake, even though he can kill ya. He's a bit like your missus, best friend in the world until you piss him off, you know.

PETER MCCUTCHEON: But the most dangerous encounter is with a small snake that looks the most delicate. To get it Darren Jacobs has to climb into an empty water retention pond used by the Queensland Fire Service.

(to Grahame Ray) How often do you have snakes down there?

GRAHAME RAY, QLD FIRE AND RESCUE: I can think of about three times that I know of and that's a snake catcher we usually get to get 'em out. Now each time, and he's not happy about going down there either and I don't blame him.

PETER MCCUTCHEON: This snake is a juvenile eastern brown, fairly small but still with enough venom to kill just under a dozen elephants.

By now you may be asking what do they do with all these snakes? Well those that are healthy are returned to the wild. The snake catchers become liberators.

DARREN JACOBS, QLD WILDLIFE SOLUTIONS: We release them in creeks where there is enough rats and lizards and stuff they can feed on so they're not actually going to move back into suburbia.

PETER MCCUTCHEON: There are houses around here, though. Do you worry they might go into the houses?

DARREN JACOBS: Well the houses that are here, they are not as close to the creek and also there is, in this creek, it's rotten with rats and mice and lizards so they are going to stay where the food is.

PETER MCCUTCHEON: Releasing the dangerous eastern brown requires great care as the snake can move at lightning speed. Luckily this snake is not preparing for an attack but making a dash for the safety of the nearby creek.

DARREN JACOBS: All snakes, it's the same as killing a koala. They are all protected. They are all Australian fauna. So it's a big no-no and also 95 per cent of people who are bitten by a snake are trying to catch or kill so, you know, when you take the 95 per cent off then you're not left with many snake bite victims.

(to customer) Where was he?

CUSTOMER: He was there. He was at the chest of drawers but he's not there anymore.

GEOFF JACOBS: You better come back, just in case he's going to jump back because if he lands on you, it's not going to be fun.

PETER MCCUTCHEON: One of the last jobs of the day is a report of a snake in a bedroom.

GEOFF JACOBS: Looks like he's got something in his belly Dags.

PETER MCCUTCHEON: No need to panic. This turns out to be a juvenile carpet python, this time with a tummy full of rat. Carpet pythons are great for keeping vermin down around the house but even these snake lovers admit there are limits.

GEOFF JACOBS: As you can see with what I'm doing, it doesn't want to bite you. But if you show one tiny little bit of fear, he's got you. So he's doing a great job around the place but you don't want him in your bedroom.